Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham [77]
“Notre Miss Anglaise.”
“Mademoiselle. ”
And the luncheon during which the Miss Anglaise sat silent while the distinguished writer talked to his host and hostess.
But to Philip her words called up much more romantic fancies.
“Do tell me all about him,” he said excitedly.
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said truthfully, but in such a manner as to convey that three volumes would scarcely have contained the lurid facts. “You mustn’t be curious.”
She began to talk of Paris. She loved the boulevards and the Bois. There was grace in every street, and the trees in the Champs-Elysées had a distinction which trees had not elsewhere. They were sitting on a stile now by the high-road, and Miss Wilkinson looked with disdain upon the stately elms in front of them. And the theaters: the plays were brilliant, and the acting was incomparable. She often went with Madame Foyot, the mother of the girls she was educating, when she was trying on clothes.
“Oh, what a misery to be poor!” she cried. “These beautiful things, it’s only in Paris they know how to dress, and not to be able to afford them! Poor Madame Foyot, she had no figure. Sometimes the dressmaker used to whisper to me: ‘Ah, Mademoiselle, if she only had your figure.’ ”
Philip noticed then that Miss Wilkinson had a robust form, and was proud of it.
“Men are so stupid in England. They only think of the face. The French, who are a nation of lovers, know how much more important the figure is.”
Philip had never thought of such things before, but he observed now that Miss Wilkinson’s ankles were thick and ungainly. He withdrew his eyes quickly.
“You should go to France. Why don’t you go to Paris for a year. You would learn French, and it would—déniaiser you.”
“What is that?” asked Philip.
She laughed slyly.
“You must look it out in the dictionary. Englishmen do not know how to treat women. They are so shy. Shyness is ridiculous in a man. They don’t know how to make love. They can’t even tell a woman she is charming without looking foolish.”
Philip felt himself absurd. Miss Wilkinson evidently expected him to behave very differently; and he would have been delighted to say gallant and witty things, but they never occurred to him; and when they did he was much too afraid of making a fool of himself to say them.
“Oh, I loved Paris,” sighed Miss Wilkinson. “But I had to go to Berlin. I was with the Foyot girls till the girls married, and then I could get nothing to do, and I had the chance of this post in Berlin. They’re relations of Madame Foyot, and I accepted. I had a tiny apartment in the Rue Bréda, on the cinquiéme: it wasn’t at all respectable. You know about the Rue Bréda—ces dames, you know.”
Philip nodded, not knowing at all what she meant, but vaguely suspecting, and anxious she should not think him too ignorant.
“But I didn’t care. Je suis libre, n’est-ce pas?” She was very fond of speaking French, which indeed she spoke well. “Once I had such a curious adventure there.”
She paused a little and Philip pressed her to tell it.
“You wouldn’t tell me yours in Heidelberg,” she said.
“They were so unadventurous,” he retorted.
“I don’t know what Mrs. Carey would say if she knew the sort of things we talk about together.”
“You don’t imagine I shall tell her.”
“Will you promise?”
When he had done this, she told him how an art student who had a room on the floor above her—but she interrupted herself.
“Why don’t you go in for art? You paint so prettily.”
“Not well enough for that.”
“That is for others to judge. Je my connais, and I believe you have the making of a great artist.” “Can’t you see Uncle William’s face if I suddenly told him I wanted to go to Paris and study art?”
“You’re your own master, aren’t you?”
“You’re trying to put me off. Please go on with the story.”
Miss Wilkinson, with a little laugh, went on. The art student had passed her several times on the stairs,